Usually, attention is focused on its activities during the Second World War [pic above].

My newspaper cutting points to its role during the First World War.

Acland, a Liberal MP influential in setting up the Forestry Commission, according to his Wikipedia entry, adapts a poem from Macaulay (the British historian and politician, Macaulay?) to describe the farm work of women and men too young or old to serve working the land in the absence of men at war.

The newspaper editor subtitles the piece “an admonition in verse.” Yet Acland is not criticising the women but praising them.

The newspaper quotes the politician’s ditty:

“The harvests of East Anglia This year old maids must reapThis year young boys of Cumberland Must dip the struggling sheep.And in the farms of Lunedale This year the milk must form From the white hands of strapping girls Whose sires are gone from home.”

Mrs Roland Wilkins also addresses the Women’s Farm and Garden Union: the work of women, old men and boys are replacing that of some 300,000 men taken from the land for military service.

Mrs Roland Wilkins makes an acerbic (as I read it) comment on how women’s war effort may be better served on the land than “putting sugar in cups of teas for Tommies.”

In rural areas – home to the majority of the world’s hungry – they grow most of the crops for domestic consumption and are primarily responsible for preparing, storing and processing food. They also handle livestock, gather food, fodder and fuelwood and manage the domestic water supply. In addition, they provide most of the labour for post-harvest activities. Yet women’s work often goes unrecognized, and they lack the leverage necessary to gain access to resources, training and finance.

The enclosure of common land across the centuries, or the privatisation of British land, is where many modern problems began. Subsistence farmers, the peasant class, were wrenched from their land by rich men’s control and might.

“A time there was, ere England’s griefs began,

When every rood of ground maintained its man;

For him light labour spread her wholesome store,

Just gave what life required, but gave no more:”

What a great description of sustainability. Thank you, Oliver Goldsmith (1728 –1774), Irish novelist (The Vicar of Wakefield), poet, and playwright (She Stoops to Conquer).

The struggle to retain our natural rights – grow food and be in nature – continues. Last weekend, I was at the launch of the Apricot Centre at Huxhams Cross Farm in Dartington, Devon (images).

I love working with the Biodynamic Land Trust. Then the dream thing happened and I went to Brussels for a few days for work. I am grateful to the Access to Land EU conference organisers for supporting my travel.

[Brexit rant: It took two hours by train from Kings Cross, London to Brussels – of course, am in Europe. I apologise for Brexit. In a loo in Brussels, graffiti proclaimed “I voted Remain” to which several had added, “me too” including me (always have felt tip for such occasions).]

Back to the conference: it was held during June heatwave in the peaceful and collegiate setting of the Franciscan centre, Notre Dame Chant d’Oiseau.

We held some of the workshop sessions outside under the comforting shade of a beautiful tree.

If you care about real food, you have to care about the land.

But land is not valued as a place to grow food. Land is seen as an investment – a place to lock in-money. The EU subsidy system distorts the market further, favouring rich landowners over small ecological farmers delivering healthy local food, and protection of soil and wildlife. (The EU is not perfect. Obvs. It needs reform.).

Brexit is a messy, expensive pain but it is also an opportunity to reshape UK farming, and many organisations are seizing the day.

26 June 2017: Brexit negotiations began, and 80 food and farming organisations released their food policy plan for agriculture, A People’s Food Policy.

The Biodynamic Land Trust was one of the 80 organisations supporting the People’s Food Policy.

The Biodynamic Land Trust’s current community share offer is for Huxhams Cross Farm in Dartington, south Devon (near Totnes). Below, is a picture of the farm’s magical wooded area where local children come to learn about land and farming, and be outdoors in nature. They love it.